The public utility "Vodovod i kanalizacija" - Skopje has announced that the city's drinking water is safe and fit for use. The figures behind the claim are specific: between 17 and 21 August the Sanitary Control Department took 206 samples for physical-chemical analysis and 206 for microbiological analysis, from a total of 47 measuring points across Skopje.

Every tested sample meets the requirements of the Rulebook on drinking water safety and quality. Not one deviated.

That is good news and it deserves to be said without reservation. In a country where reports about water usually arrive after something has already gone wrong, a report in which all 412 samples pass is exactly what we want to read.

The question that remains

The report covers one week and 47 measuring points. That is a valid snapshot, but a snapshot. What the statement does not say is how often these analyses are published, and what happens in the weeks when the result is not this one.

That is where the real value of this kind of reporting lies: not in the confirmation that everything is fine, but in the habit of the numbers coming out regularly, whatever the outcome. Trust in tap water is not built with one statement issued when needed. It is built with data that arrives every week, when it is good and when it is not.

Until then, it is good to know - 412 samples, 47 measuring points, not a single deviation. Again next week.